Bethany's POV:

"Nightwing! What do we do?!" I seethed. I had an iron grip on his forearm, and I was pretty sure I was hurting him.

Instead of freaking out, like I was, he quickly looked around the room, running from corner to corner, trying to find a way out. We couldn't break the window, because then it would be too obvious that someone had been here. And even if we got out through the window, there was still a 35 floor drop.

"Here!" Dick said sharply. He pointed to an air vent high on the wall that was barely big enough to fit me.

"How in the world are you going to fit in there? It looks like it'll barely even fit me!" No way was I going to leave Dick, if that's what he was thinking.

But instead of saying some sort of dramatic goodbye, he simply winked at me and said, "You forget that I used to be an acrobat. Try me."

Well that was good enough to convince me. Without talking, we moved to get into position so that he could hoist me up to the vent. I took off my stupid high hells - oh, I meant "heels"- and stood on his knees and undid the vent and handed it to Dick. He hoisted me up to the vent and I barely squeezed through. I moved further down the air shaft, shoes in hand. And soon, I heard the sound of Dick coming in behind me. Okay, the space just felt a thousand times smaller. I think I developed claustrophobia right then and there.

"Are you okay?" I called over my shoulder.

There was the sound of the grate closing again and then Dick finally grunted out, "Just dandy. Please move forward, I can't breathe."

I didn't even wanna know how he was able to squeeze himself into this air shaft.

"You better not look up my skirt or anything." I warned. "I can kick you from here."

There was a mischivous laugh and then he remarked "Nice shorts you've got under there."

I tried and failed to kick him. Even in a tiny air shaft, he's quick to dodge. Ugh.

There was a bluish light that illuminated the tunnel. I couldn't look back so instead I called out, "What are you doing?"

"Pulling up the map of the building that I downloaded from the computer." There was a pause. And then, "Go forward and then make the first right."

Just then, there was the splintering noise of the door to Drexel Raven's office being burst open and there were the sounds of officers hustling. Immediately, Dick turned off his glowing map and without hesitation I shifted forward as quietly as I could.

Ever so slowly, we made our way through the maze of small tunnels. After a while, the air shaft started to open up and get taller. Soon, Dick and I were able to crawl through the tunnels on our hands and knees.

As soon as we were further enough away, the comms unit was alive with chatter.

"Where are you guys?" Tim's voice echoed in my comms unit.

"About to get out into the lobby," Dick replied.

As if on cue, there was a vent up ahead that, I assumed, opened up to the lobby.

"We're moving the rendezvous point a block further down." Batman said simply.

"What why?" I demanded. This was already bad enough. I'd be surprised if we were allowed to even leave the building at all at this point.

"Because the police and I'm pretty sure that's the SWAT team are all parked in front of the building." Barbara replied. I gasped and I accidentally hit my head on top of the low ceiling.

"What?!" I hissed.

"It's okay, just act natural." Dick said from behind me.

After looking to make sure no one was looking, I opened the vent and leapt out, eager to breath some fresh air.

I quickly slipped on my shoes and tried to adjust my blouse as Dick adjusted the air vent back in place and handed me my purse.

"Okay, let's go-"

"You! What are you guys doing here?" A police officer came out of nowhere.

My heart stopped beating and I'm pretty sure my face was as white as my blouse.

"And why do you guys look like that?" He pointed to my messy hair and my skirt that had been hiked up from crawling through the air vents. I looked over at Dick and his hair was a little messed up and part of his shirt was untucked. Aw shit. This is bad.

Dicks arm wrapped tightly around my waist in an almost PG13 way and he leaned in close to my face and nuzzled my hair. What the hell? Was he high or something?

Before I could shove him off, Dick replied coolly, "Well, we were in the bathroom together and we didn't know what was going on outside."

"What do you mean?" The officer furrowed his eyebrows and stepped closer.

"Well, how do we put it? We were... in our own little world..." He trailed off and gently moved my face to look at him. Before I could say anything, his lips crashed into mine and he started moving his lips passionately. I swear, I couldn't help it, but I started kissing him back, as if it were some sort of natural reaction. We were making out. Right in front of the officer. What was going on...?

"Okay, okay! I get the point." The officer said really loudly. He was already backing away.

Dick moved away from me and let go of my waist, a little smug smile on his lips. Damn that smirk.

"Evacuation started five minutes ago. All employees are to leave the building immediately and group with their supervisors." Then the police marched quickly away, probably scarred.

"Come on," Dick grabbed my hand and tugged me out of the building. My lips were still tingling and my face was still burning from the kiss. I was actually shaking a little.

As we sped away from the Ravens Corporation building, Dick squeezed my hand. "I'm really sorry I just kissed you like that out of the blue. You can hit me during training tomorrow if you want."

I cleared my throat, "I-It's okay."

"When in doubt, just make out...?" He perked an eyebrow over at me.

"No!" I punched him. "That is not a saying. If anything, only Wally would say something like that!"

Before he could say anything else, I smacked into someone. Like really ran into someone. It was a full-on-forehead-smack that was so hard that the other person fell to the ground and my head started to throb.

Dick caught me before I could topple to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

"Ouch," I rubbed my forehead where I had smacked into the person.

"Owwwww. Ugh! Watch where you're going!" The person lying on the concrete snapped up at us.

That voice made me freeze in my tracks. Cold ice slithered down my back causing me to almost jump back and hide behind Dick. No way. She couldn't be here... Why?!

I would never forget that voice. It was from one evil person.

Ash.

Booyah! Hahahaha, it's time for you guys to meet the dreaded Ash! I hope you guys remember who she is. If not... you'll have to remember from the first book. You guys may need to remind each other of who she is!

Keep calm and stay traught.

:)

XOXO